Another day, another superfluous shark movie to join the ranks of its aquatic horror brethren. This time around, acclaimed genre director Xavier Gens (The Divide, Frontier(s)) takes the reins. A wonderful fit, one may assume, for a gritty, realistic take on a well-worn idea. Instead of following a path that seems obvious given Gens’s penchant for the macabre, his film has more in common with 2018’s cheesy Jason Statham-starrer, The Meg. While the occasional carnage and mayhem tries hard to keep audience attention, an over reliance on slow motion and CGI does not bode well for Under Paris.
In the opening scenes, we become acquainted with Sophia (Berenice Bejo) and her research team, hard at work on “Project Evolution.” They have tagged different species of sharks, and tracked them to follow the signal in the water. Their actual goal here is murky, but it is all about the plastics in the water, and the environmental impact of various factors, or some such nonsense. No one will be here for the exposition, anyway. What happens next may be more appealing: Sophia’s entire team gets completely decimated by the female shark, Lilith, they had been tracking.
Flashing forward some time later, Sophia still wears the scars of her near-death, having been pulled deep underwater, snagged in a net as her blood vessels popped. Between kids poking fun that her whole team was “eaten by sharks” during her regular work hours, there at least a bright spot. To her surprise, in the interim, many people have resumed the work that Sophia began. Environmental activist Mika (Lea Leviant) wants people to know how important aquatic animals are to our ecosystem. The “Save the Sea Collective” goes viral, imploring people to help rescue Lilith. The sharks, deprived of their natural food and habitat, must be protected. In trying to track down the beacon, the new team must go diving under Paris to locate the signal once more.
Apart from this collective and their mission statement, Paris plays host to the World Triathlon Championships on the Seine for the first time ever. The location, dangerously close to where the massive shark has been spotted, could pose a serious threat for all of those unsuspecting swimmers. Eventually, chaos ensues, somewhere between preposterously silly set-pieces, questionable leaps in logic, and more slow motion than a Zack Snyder movie. If the hijinks were a little better paced, a movie akin to Shark Night 3D or Deep Blue Sea would be in the cards: fun, but brutal and endlessly engaging. Instead, Under Paris feels like a slog that overstays its welcome.
None of these characters have more to do than act as fish food, minus maybe Sophia. However, the ending actually dials up the insanity to an appropriate level. The final result would have been epic had it appeared maybe midway through rather than in the closing moments, but the suggestion of a sequel proposes intriguing possibilities. Should Gens decide to return, maybe he can take a slightly more grounded approach, or even fully embrace the silliness. Falling somewhere in the middle does no favors. Swarming with shark-action but having little else to offer, Under Paris should stay buried deep in the catacombs.
Explore the shark-infested waters of Under Paris, tearing into Netflix globally on June 5th.
